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With news, reviews and events in the fair city of film a little thinner on the ground at the moment, Film In Dublin will taking an occasional look at What’s On…The Shelf, taking a deeper dive in to some of the films in their personal collections. This time, Luke Dunne goes on a ramble about Jackie Chan’s 90’s hit, Rumble in the Bronx.

It isn’t much of an exaggeration to call the Bad Boys series to date some of the most hateful films ever to make it to the multiplex. Bad Boys II was particularly repugnant; a cruel, homophobic, racist, cynical indulgence in all of the worst excesses of director Michael Bay, mindless and reactionary even by 2003 standards. That’s on top of incoherent action and grimly repeated buddy cop tropes, just about jolted into life by the chemistry of Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. Action movies have moved on, and most big budget blockbusters at least try to hide it when they have fascistic overtones or adolescent sensibilities. So seventeen years later and with its stars both in very different places in their careers, was there any good reason to resurrect these crass cops, besides their sworn oath to be bad boys til’ they die? Improbably, yes. This is very much the post Hot Fuzz vision of Bad Boys, its ludicrous macho bullshit has been exposed so thoroughly but so lovingly since by films like Edgar Wright’s that the only real way to move forward is to acknowledge and embrace the OTT tropes. Like a lot of aging franchises, For Life asks the question if it’s old gunslingers still have any gas left in the tank. Then, to raucous effect, it blows up that tank, doubling down on every excess and wallowing in something wonderfully wild.

When revealing his daily routine recently on social media, Mark Wahlberg was very comprehensive. After waking at 2.30 in the morning, after getting some prayer in, Wahlberg spends hours upon hours working out in the gym, stopping only in order to consume a mid-sized lakes worth of protein, the better to enable even more working out. Sometimes he goes to the golf course. Presumably for time management reasons, he has members of his entourage driving turkey meatballs into his mouth while he plays. Wahlberg works tirelessly to turn himself into a flawless specimen, so it would be understandable if it stuck in the man’s craw just a little that after all that he isn’t as physically impressive as Mile 22 co-star Iko Uwais, the ass-kicking Indonesian of The Raid movies. Wahlberg is front and centre on the many Mile 22 posters around Dublin at the moment, but the storytelling and the physical facts really say that Uwais should be the focus here, and we might well have gotten a better movie if he were.

Another Irish film is set to receive a premiere at the prestigious Toronoto International Film Festival. The unique “Gaelspoitation” thriller Black 47continues its highly successful tour of the festival circuit by stopping off for a North American premiere at TIFF 2018, joining John Butler’s Papa Chulo among many other hotly anticipated films screening in the Canadian culture hub this September.

This autumn, one of the most striking films to come out of this year’s Audi Dublin International Film Festival will become available to the wider viewing public of Ireland. A pulpy action thriller set during The Great Famine, we described the Opening Gala of ADIFF 2018 as a film that “will inspire thoughtful debates and blood-lusting cheers in equal measure”. Lance Daly’s film is set to hit Irish cinemas on the 7th of September.

For an event that had such a profound impact on the course of Irish history, the great tragedy and injustice from which Ireland’s entire subsequent history as a nation sprang forth from, it’s surprising that the Famine hasn’t found its story told on cinema screens, particularly Irish ones, more often. Director Lance Daly takes that task on in Black 47, last week’s Opening Gala of the 2018 Dublin International Film Festival. His approach is perhaps unexpected considering the subject matter, the film being a roaring rampage of revenge, internalising the anger and injustice of the Famine into one man’s quest for vengeance. Prestigous? No. But undoubtedly compelling.

Get ready to fall in love with Wakanda – the fictional African nation of the Marvel Universe, a hidden technological utopia that serves as the backdrop for much of Black Panther. While not technically alive, it is perhaps the films single biggest star. Wakanda, as presented on screen, is a fully realized and lived-in world, with a sense of awe and wonder waiting around every corner. It is a place whose cultural significance is undeniable – expertly crafted and wonderfully depicted through every costume, character, and setting; a place that helps Black Panther look and feel completely fresh.